Todd Rundgren And The Hello People - Mad Red Ant Lady (1972)

I'll start by saying that I consider Todd Rundgren as something of a musical genius - singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer, band leader and solo artist, and fashion icon! (just check out some of his stage outfits from the 70's and 80's). He started his musical career in the band Woody's Truck Stop, before leaving them to form his own band The Nazz, who released three albums of Anglophile rock, heavily influenced by The Beatles and The Who, but with Rundgren writing the material. On their first album he even took a stab a producing the record after the actual producer Bill Traut had gone home, adding effects such as varispeed and flanging to the recordings. The single 'Open My Eyes' backed with 'Hello It's Me' became their first hit, and the albums 'Nazz' and 'Nazz Nazz' followed, with 'Nazz III' being released some time later after the band had left the label, and the old record company collected together some outtakes and off-cuts to cobble together something to release to make a quick buck. Some of these came from the sessions for their second record, which was originally to have been a double album entitled 'Fungo Bat', but the record company cut it down to a single record and re-titled it 'Nazz Nazz'. 
After The Nazz split his songwriting became very much influenced by artists such as Laura Nyro, who he felt had a unique songwriting style, and he continued to write and record songs while working as a producer for other bands in New York. Among his production duties during this period were albums by The American Dream, Great Speckled Bird, and on a recommendation by The Band's Robbie Robertson he produced a record for Jessie Winchester, which impressed Robertson so much that he was asked to produce The Band's 'Stage Fright' album. Despite his successful productions, he still wanted to make his own music, and so formed the band Runt in 1970, including Hunt and Tony Sales, years before they joined David Bowie in Tin Machine. Rundgren himself wrote, produced, sang, and played guitars, keyboard, and other instruments on the record, and so whether Runt is best described as a band or simply a pseudonym for Rundgren the solo artist is open to conjecture. For the album 'Runt' the group appeared to be a bona fide trio, but on their second album 'Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren', Hunt Sales plays only on two tracks and is replaced by N. D. Smart on the rest of the album. 
By this time, Rundgren had effectively moved his base to Los Angeles, and as he prepared for his second solo album, he met aspiring LA band Half-Nelson, led by brothers Ron and Russell Mael, with guitarist Earle Mankey. After attending an elaborate, self-staged 'showcase' performance by the group at their LA rehearsal space, Rundgren agreed to produce their debut album, originally released as 'Half-Nelson' and later re-titled 'Sparks', and the brothers have credited Rundgren with launching their career. By 1972, the Runt persona/band identity had been abandoned, and Rundgren's ambitious double album 'Something/Anything?' was credited simply to Rundgren, who wrote, played, sang, engineered, and produced everything on three of the four sides of the album. It provided Rundgren with two hit singles in 'I Saw the Light' and a remake of the Nazz near-hit 'Hello It's Me', and on the subsequent tour he asked The Hello People to be his backing band. Rundgren and The Hello People went into Ultrasonic Studios in 1972 to record a number of the songs from the album, and when I found this bootleg I was really looking forward to hearing studio recordings of full band versions of the songs, but on playing it I found that it was actually a live concert in front of an invited audience. The recording itself was studio quality, though, and so to make up for my disappointment I decided to remove all the audience noise to make the studio album that I expected to hear. A few edits and fades later and I have the band album that I wanted, so here is a great vintage recording of Rundgren at his peak, with a band behind him who know exactly what he wants, and featuring a number of songs that I assume are Hello People originals, including the title track which they eventually released a couple of years later.   

Track listing

01 Broke Down & Busted
02 Georgia Swing
03 Piss Aaron
04 Outside Love
05 A Dream Goes On Forever
06 I Saw The Light
07 Blaze
08 It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference
09 Feels So Good To Be Alive
10 Mad Red Ant Lady
11 Lady On The Terrace
12 Slut